Off-ice couples leading pack in mixed doubles play

Laura Crocker and Geoff Walker wouldn’t mind taking a honeymoon before their wedding.

“In South Korea . . . that would be nice,” Walker said Thursday at the Canadian Olympic mixed doubles curling trials.

“That’s the plan,” Crocker added.

The couple will get married in Mexico in May, but wedding plans aren’t exactly at the forefront for the couple right now.

Not when they are competing together and excelling.

Should they win it all in the 18-team event, they’ll represent Canada at the Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea next month.

Crocker and Walker clinched first place in Pool B Thursday with a 9-6 win over Dana Ferguson and Brendan Bottcher. Both teams were 6-0 heading into the matchup but it was Crocker and Walker who kept the perfect record intact.

They’ll be a top seed in the eight-team double-knockout playoff round that starts today.

“It’s a really cool experience to do this together,” Crocker said. “Win or lose, to be playing with each other is a pretty special experience. I’m pretty lucky having Geoff as a partner. He’s a nice, calm, cool, collected partner and it keeps me grounded out there. It works well as a partnership.”

They are not the only couple having success this week.

Jocelyn Peterman and Brett Gallant clinched first place in Pool A, running their record to 7-0 with a 7-2 win over Sherry Just and Tyler Griffith.

Partners on and off the ice, Peterman and Gallant have been finding success for a few years in the mixed doubles events. They won the 2016 Canadian mixed doubles championship, beating Crocker and Walker in the final.

“As a couple, we get to practice a little bit more together than some might,” Gallant said. “This is our third season together, but I had never played a game of mixed doubles before and we played the Canadian championship two years ago and we won that.

“We had a lot of success right off the bat. We weren’t really sure what the key to it was at the start. Over playing quite a few games together I think we realize what works for us and what doesn’t. We’ve just been trying to stick to the same kind of game plan.”

Gallant (second) and Walker (lead) are teammates on Brad Gushue’s foursome that won the world men’s title last year.

Gushue and his third Mark Nichols also still are in the tournament — Nichols and Jennifer Jones have clinched at least a tiebreaker with a 5-2 record, while Gushue and Val Sweeting were sitting at 4-2 heading into the afternoon and evening draws.

Jones and Nichols fell behind 5-1 to Dawn and Mike McEwen on Thursday afternoon, but stormed back to win 9-6.

“That’s why I love the format so much . . . you are never out of it,” Jones said. “Even when you are up, you’re always needing to make some big shots.

“Our goal at the beginning of the week was to make the playoffs and especially since we haven’t played mixed doubles together in a few years, we wanted to work out the kinks and I think we’ve done that.”

The only other team that had clinched a playoff spot with three round-robin draws remaining was Bottcher and Ferguson (6-1).